02.26.10
Posted in Evolution at 12:54 pm by nemo
Atheists attack Darwinian evolution in new book
All critics of Darwin are raving lunatics, fundamentalist Creationists or Right-wing zealots…
…or so many people are led to believe.
But is this actually true? Jerry Fodor, professor of philosophy and cognitive sciences at Rutgers University, and Massimo Piattelli-Palmarini, a professor of cognitive science at the University of Arizona, are living proof that this is a false stereotype. Fodor and Piattelli-Palmarini, both atheist, co-authored the book “What Darwin God Wrong” and were recently interviewed about it.
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Posted in Evolution, Science & Religion at 12:51 pm by nemo
What Darwin did to Christianity
Not much, actually, if you were orthodox enough.
by Dan Hitchens
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Posted in Evolution at 12:48 pm by nemo
Natural ‘Magnetometer’ in Upper Beak of Birds?
ScienceDaily (Feb. 26, 2010) — Iron containing short nerve branches in the upper beak of birds may serve as a magnetometer to measure the vector of the Earth magnetic field (intensity and inclination) and not only as a magnetic compass, which shows the direction of the magnetic field lines.
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Posted in neuroscience at 12:47 pm by nemo
Internal Metronome: Brain Implant Reveals Neural Patterns of Attention
ScienceDaily (Feb. 26, 2010) — A paralyzed patient implanted with a brain-computer interface device has allowed scientists to determine the relationship between brain waves and attention.
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Posted in Evolution at 12:46 pm by nemo
Interactions Between Species: Powerful Driving Force Behind Evolution?
ScienceDaily (Feb. 25, 2010) — Scientists at the University of Liverpool have provided the first experimental evidence that shows that evolution is driven most powerfully by interactions between species, rather than adaptation to the environment.
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Posted in Evolution at 12:44 pm by nemo
The Bigger the Animal, the Stiffer the ‘Shoes’: Carnivores’ Feet ‘Tuned’ to Their Body Size
ScienceDaily (Feb. 25, 2010) — If a Tiger’s feet were built the same way as a mongoose’s feet, they’d have to be about the size of a hippo’s feet to support the big cat’s weight. But they’re not.
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Posted in In the News at 12:41 pm by nemo
Published on Friday, February 26, 2010 by McClatchy Newspapers
Obama Aides to Meet with Secular Coalition, Atheists on White House Grounds
by Margaret Talev
WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama has burnished his Christian credentials, courted Jewish support and preached outreach toward Muslims. On Friday, his administration will host a group that fits none of the above: America’s nonbelievers.
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Posted in global warming, you've got mail at 12:37 pm by nemo
CLIMATE AND CAPITALISM
An online journal focusing on capitalism, climate change,
and the ecosocialist alternative.
February 23, 2010
Read the rest of this entry »
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Posted in you've got mail at 12:33 pm by nemo
Khadija Sharife | Climate Change’s Secret Weapon
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/02/25-4
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Posted in you've got mail at 12:32 pm by nemo
Bill McKibben | The Attack on Climate-Change Science
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/02/25-1
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Posted in you've got mail at 12:31 pm by nemo
Coal-Fired Power on the Way Out?
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/02/25
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Posted in you've got mail at 12:29 pm by nemo
RG mail
http://www.newsweek.com/id/233942
Book Review: The Lomborg Deception
Debunking the claims of the climate-change skeptic.
By Sharon Begley | Newsweek Web Exclusive
Feb 22, 2010
In naming roustabout, lumberjack, ironworker, and dairy farmer America’s “worst jobs,” CareerCast.com omitted one whose awfulness is counterbalanced only by its public-spiritedness: fact-checking Bjørn Lomborg.
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Posted in you've got mail at 12:28 pm by nemo
RG mail
by Robert Scheer
Truthdig (February 23 2010)
They do have a license to steal. There is no other way to read
Tuesday’s report from the New York state comptroller that bonuses for
Wall Street financiers rose seventeen percent to $20.3 billion in 2009.
Of course that is less than the $32.9 billion for bonus rewards back in
2007, when those hotshots could still pretend that they were running
sound businesses.
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/no_banker_left_behind_20100223/
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Posted in you've got mail at 12:25 pm by nemo
RG mail
by Lester R Brown
earth-policy.org (August 12 2009)
In recent years there has been a growing concern over thresholds or
tipping points in nature. For example, scientists worry about when the
shrinking population of an endangered species will fall to a point from
which it cannot recover. Marine biologists are concerned about the point
where overfishing will trigger the collapse of a fishery.
http://www.earth-policy.org/index.php?/book_bytes/2008/pb3ch01_ss5#
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02.25.10
Posted in cosmology, Kant, Science & Religion at 4:30 pm by nemo
Coyne blog on Ruse
It seems that Ruse can’t quite get his argument tuned to what he is feeling about the New Atheists. This kind of ‘something is wrong with Dawkins’ atheism pitch’ feeling has hit a lot of people. But Ruse can’t quite figure out how to proceed. I can’t really help since, while I understand his feeling, I don’t agree with his approach.
But OK, Ruse’s point is good: monotheists (naively?) were sensitive to first cause argument, and at the fountain source of theism that argument is extremely powerful.
Or is it? The problem is the failure to graps a kind of Kantian antinomy involved in first cause arguments. As Kants so eloquently dissolves the logic here, on both sides, we cannot do with, or do without the first cause logic.
So the problem with Dawkins is that he proposes a simple reversal of the antinomy, in all seriously, oblivious to the double aspect to the Kantian antinomy.
Ruse on the First Cause argument:
“You know, and I know, that Christians (St. Augustine, certainly St. Thomas) spent a hell of a lot of time—I mean, they knew this—what they were trying to do, was articulate a notion of God who would be First Cause: you know, the whole notion of a Satiety Aseity, God as a Necessary Being. You know, God’s essence is His existence.”
. . . Christians have got some grown-up responses to these sorts of things, and I think that Dawkins does a serious disservice to the cause of nonbelief by not being prepared to take seriously the kinds of things that believers believe in.”
Well, as many have pointed out, I’m neither a philosopher nor a theologian, but these highly sophisticated defenses of the First Cause Argument seem to me merely intellectualized versions of the assertion, “My kind of God did too exist forever!” Perhaps real philosopher/theologians like Eric MacDonald can weigh in here.
Anyway, here, according to a new survey by the Pew Forum, are some of the things that Americans do believe (proportion of respondents who accept the notions):
Bible as the word of God: 63%
Bible as the literal word of God: 33%
Life after death: 74%
Heaven: 74%
Hell: 59%
Miracles: 79%
Angels and demons: 68%
Own religion is the one truth path that can lead to eternal life: 24%
Many religions can lead to eternal life: 74%
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Posted in Booknotes, Evolution at 4:08 pm by nemo
Wallace book (ID list of books)
7. Alfred Russel Wallace’s Theory of Intelligent Evolution by Michael A. Flannery. Alfred Russel Wallace (1823-1913), co-discoverer of natural selection, was second only to Charles Darwin as the 19th century’s most noted English naturalist. Yet his belief in spiritualism caused him to be ridiculed and dismissed by many, leaving him a comparatively obscure and misunderstood figure. In this volume Wallace is finally allowed to speak in his own defense through his grand evolutionary synthesis The World of Life published nearly a century ago in 1910. More than just a reprinting of a near-forgotten work, Michael A. Flannery places Wallace in historical context. Flannery exposes Charles Darwin’s now-famous theory of evolution as little more than a naturalistic cover for an extreme philosophical materialism borrowed as a youth from Edinburgh radicals. This is juxtaposed by his sympathetic account of what he calls Wallace’s intelligent evolution, a thoroughly teleological alternative to Darwin’s stochastic processes. Though based upon very different formulations of natural selection, the Wallace/Darwin dispute as presented by Flannery shows a metaphysical clash of worldviews coextensive with modern evolutionary theory itself – design and purpose versus randomness and chance. This book will be of value to scholars and students alike seeking to understand the historical and philosophical roots of a controversy that still rages today.
[I strongly recommend World of Life, as I don’t think one can understand Darwinism without understanding that Darwin became a materialist atheist long before he wrote Origin, and he fudged this matter for the public. In reality, he was looking for a theory that supported that view. Also, the book explains why co-theorist Wallace was rejected by Darwin’s materialist atheist circle. Put simply, Wallace was not a materialist atheist, also not Brit upper crust. That sank him, as far as the tax burden science establishment was, and is, concerned - though he was likely a far better biologist than Darwin.]
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Posted in Evolution at 4:02 pm by nemo
First evidence found for Red Queen theory
25 February 2010, by Tamera Jones
Evolution happens faster when both parasites and their hosts evolve together, rather than on their own, say scientists. What’s more, faster-evolving parasites end up with more diverse genetic sequences, or genomes, than parasites whose hosts don’t evolve.
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Posted in Evolution at 3:58 pm by nemo
Author Reconciles Creationism and Darwinism
Dr. Imad Hassan unites the creationists and evolutionists in this brilliant work.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
PR Log (Press Release) – Feb 25, 2010 – London, UK (February 25,2010) – From author Dr. Imad Hassan comes a comprehensive, in-depth, and informative work that re-examines the meaning of the passages in the Qur’an and the Bible that address creation. Shajara Code Decoded unveils the truth between creation and evolution in this English version of Azan Al-Anaam, which was co-authored with the author’s brother, Aladdin, and first published in Sudan in Arabic form. In this philosophy of comparative religion, Dr. Hassan provides plenty of evidence from both religious books supporting the Darwinian Theory of Evolution.
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Posted in biology at 3:54 pm by nemo
Genetic Link Between Misery and Death Discovered; Novel Strategy Probes ‘Genetic Haystack’
ScienceDaily (Feb. 25, 2010) — In ongoing work to identify how genes interact with social environments to impact human health, UCLA researchers have discovered what they describe as a biochemical link between misery and death. In addition, they found a specific genetic variation in some individuals that seems to disconnect that link, rendering them more biologically resilient in the face of adversity.
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Posted in Evolution at 3:52 pm by nemo
African Pygmy Mice: Females Are XY … Researchers Find out Why
ScienceDaily (Feb. 25, 2010) — In a great majority of cases, the Y chromosome determines sex in mammals. The African pygmy mouse M. minutoides is an exception to this rule. In this species, which is a close relative of the house mouse, it is the X chromosome that determines sex.
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Posted in neuroscience at 3:50 pm by nemo
Scientists Find First Physiological Evidence of Brain’s Response to Inequality
ScienceDaily (Feb. 24, 2010) — The human brain is a big believer in equality — and a team of scientists from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) and Trinity College in Dublin, Ireland, has become the first to gather the images to prove it.
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Posted in biology at 3:49 pm by nemo
Stem Cells Restore Sight in Mouse Model of Retinitis Pigmentosa
ScienceDaily (Feb. 24, 2010) — An international research team led by Columbia University Medical Center successfully used mouse embryonic stem cells to replace diseased retinal cells and restore sight in a mouse model of retinitis pigmentosa.
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Posted in you've got mail at 3:46 pm by nemo
Liberals Have Lost Their Thunder
No, in Anger
By CLANCY SIGAL
“Never before in all our history have these forces been so united against one candidate as they stand today. They are unanimous in their hate for me and I welcome their hatred.”
President Roosevelt, Madison Square Garden, October 31, 1936
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Posted in you've got mail at 3:42 pm by nemo
gnxp
Evolution Helped Humans Have Children and Survive, but It Also Led to Modern-Day Maladies, Scientists Say
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB20001424052748704454304575081613327728110.html
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Posted in you've got mail at 3:41 pm by nemo
gnxp
People who struggle to remember faces can blame their parents
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=123975339
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